Our cheekins are still doing well, and I see them pecking around the yard all the time. They come home at night, and are well-behaved. This pleases me, and I am getting to like them more and more. So, I was pretty distressed when Matal, our friend from down the valley, came by our house the other day to tell us that her entire flock of chickens just died from a disease.
“They’re dead, they’re all dead,” she sighed, hands folded in her lap. At first, we thought she was talking about her one son that still lives with her. “What will I do? I can’t sell eggs if I don’t have chickens.” Oh. Yeah, that is a pretty big disaster too. It will take her months to get new ones and grow them big enough to lay.
This a short, firey-eyed old lady keeps a yardful of chickens and turkeys, selling eggs to supplement the subsistance farming she does to support herself in the absence of her husband and 9 children. She’s one of the most active, energetic villagers we know, and her sharp wit and biting tongue have supported us during a lecture more than once. We have been buying fresh egg fom her for nearly a year, and she’s never begged anything from anyone. To see her so upset was heartbreaking.
We consoled her some more, and gave her some vegetables from the greenhouse as she left. As soon as she was out the door, I got online to send a message to one of the Peace Corps trainers, asking for information on chicken vaccinations. I tried to get an agriculture volunteer down here a few months ago to do a seminar on the whys and hows of chicken vaccination, but for reasons of scheduling and transportation, it just didn’t work out. Now this is starting to hit home, and feel like I need to help the locals learn about how to better protect their chickens, especially those whose livelihoods depend on them. If I can’t get a specialist down here, maybe I can learn enough about it to pass some information along.
About the time I got done with the email, there was another knock on the door. Our chicken problems for the day were not over. “Come over to my house, right away.” It was Lina, Manuel’s wife who sold us the previous chicken that kept returning to her house.
I went over, and Lina was chasing chickens. “You need to take the two chicks I owe you,” she said.
I pondered. “Um, we’re leaving tomorrow morning at 6am. We’ll be gone for a week. Can you hold them a while longer?”
“No, they need to go now, or else they’ll remember they live here, and we’ll have the same problem as last time.”
I sighed. “OK, put them in the bag.” I didn’t really know what to do; I want all obligations between us to be OVER, regardless of the inconvenience for me. But if I am gone a week, who will talke care of these new chicks? She put them in the gunnysack I had brought with me.
I turned to leave, and she stopped me. “Chicks this size are worth 50q each, remember? You owe me 25q now, since you paid 75q for the last one.”
WHAT? Wait a minute, the only reason I paid 75q last time was because I wanted a young, 50q chicken and she only had a 75q bigger one, and switch-sold me. I was not in the mood to get switch-sold again.
“No, I can’t do that,” I replied. “I have already spent too much money on this. I don’t have 25q more.” She frowned. I pondered, then restated my position. Then I gave up. “OK, tell you what. Take one of the chicens back, and I will just take this one, and we’ll call it even.” I held the bag open and out towards her.
She looked at me sideways, pausing, then waved me off. “You just take them. I don’t want to owe you any money anymore.” Then she walked off. Apparently, this episode of the Manuel stress was over.
I walked back to the house, half-annoyed, half-relieved. Then I realized that the problem was NOT over. Yesterday, when I was at Lina’s house, I noticed one of their chickens was really sick. It had foam on both of its eyes, and was walking into walls. What if these two chickens were infected, and they caused my two GOOD chickens to get sick and die? ARG! Will this never end?
I found myself standing in our house, chicken-bag in hand, recounting my story to Emily and the Aunties as the occasional squawk escaped from the wiggling sack. What to do?
“Give them to Matal,” my aunt Ellen said without missing a beat. I stared at her. Pure genius! In one fell swoop, I could get my money back form Manuel, keep my own chickens safe, and help a friend recover from disaster. And I wasn’t even putting Matal’s flock at risk from disease, as they were already dead! Emily and I conferred briefly, and then I walked out the door to do just that.
Postscript:
My friend Brian (ironically, the one who helps with the blog server, not “Chicken Brian”) has chickens as well. He and his wife started their chicken adventure about the same time as Emily and I, and we still enjoy comparing the diffrernces between keeping chickens in Guatemala vs. the USA. They just built a deck onto their chicken coop, so their kids can go get the eggs. You can see it here. My free-range hillbilly chickens wouldn’t even recognize Brian’s chicken palace as a living place if they saw it. Then again, maybe they would. Chickens are dumb, but very pragmatic about where they spend the night.